History
- Born from Festival of Light
- Family Action Movement
- Call to Australia/ Party
- Rev Fred Nile’s 1981 Election to Parliament
- Fred Nile Settles In
- Jim Cameron’s 1984 Election as CTA Member
- Marie Bignold’s 1985 Succession of Jim
- Elaine Nile’s 1988 Election to Parliament
- Rumblings in the Ranks
- Abolition of Marie’s Seat
- Reconciliation
- Fred Nile’s 1991 Re-election
- Elaine Nile’s 1995 Re-election
- Christian Democratic Party
- Fred Nile’s 1999 Re-election
- Elaine Nile Plans to Retire
- Selection of 2003 NSW Election Campaign Team
- Elaine Nile Retires / Gordon Moyes fills the ‘Casual Vacancy’
- Gordon Moyes’ 2003 Election
- New Appointment: State Director
Rev Fred Nile’s political awakening occurred in 1973. As first full-time director of the Festival
of Light in NSW (“FOL”) he had to
undertake a crash course in politics. FOL’s
concern with important moral and social issues meant he had to organise
deputations to state and Federal governments, to Prime Ministers, Premiers,
Attorneys-General and others.
At that time, the Federal Attorney-General and Minister for Customs and
Excise was Senator Lionel Murphy.
Senator Murphy had no sympathy with FOL’s aims, and his ruthlessness was
revealed when a FOL deputation went to see him in 1974 about his plans to relax
censorship laws. The deputation
consisted of respected lawyers and church leaders, but during the meeting
Senator Murphy accused them of being a Liberal Party front. Rev Nile said no, they had support from ALP
MPs. ‘Who?’ he asked in disbelief. Rev
Nile explained that Mr Mallam was on the FOL Advisory Committee. Senator Murphy excused himself, left the room
and returned shortly afterwards. ‘Mr Mallam is no longer on your committee,’ he
said.
When the FOL deputation got back to
That 1974 deputation was a turning point for FOL. By this and other provocative challenges,
Senator Murphy unintentionally forced them to launch a militant form of
Christian action and finally a political movement.
Even before 1974 Senator Murphy enjoyed scorning the FOL. He was the Federal Attorney-General and
should have shown more respect for the Festival of Light’s church
representatives. Instead he mocked them,
claiming they represented no one but themselves. He challenged them to show him that
Australians really did support our Christian views. It was partly in response to this that FOL organised
their large public marches and protest rallies in Sydney and other capital
cities, as well as the Australia-wide speaking tours of Mary Whitehouse, Malcolm
Muggeridge and others.
A small group of Festival of Light leaders – Frieda Brown, Ken Harrison
and Rev Fred Nile – also examined the possibility of political action
supporting Christian candidates, mainly to oppose the new humanist Australia
Party. In 1974 they formed a political
action group separate from the Festival of Light and called it the Family
Action Movement (FAM) – ‘FAM for the Family’.
From that point on they nominated FAM candidates for Federal and state
elections. Frieda, an Oxford graduate in
politics and constitutional law and an Anglican minister’s wife, and Ken, a
journalist, both stood themselves, as did paediatrician Clair Isbister and
others later. Rev Nile organised the
campaigns and stood in several elections – all without success.
In 1974 Rev Nile stood as number two on the Family Action Movement
Senate team; and again as number two on the Family Action Movement Senate team
in 1975.
Ironically, it was the legislative agenda of Senator Lionel Murphy, the
man who so despised, them that spurred them on, and particularly the attack on
Christian marriage and the family represented by his family law bills
introduced into Parliament during 1973 and 1974.
In 1977 FAM changed its name and became the Call to
Rev Fred Nile’s 1981 Election to Parliament
After an unexpected breakthrough into the media with his newspaper
column and radio show, Rev Nile wondered what other surprises God might have in
store. But not in his wildest
imagination did he seriously anticipate the development that crowned 1981 as a
year of miracles – his election to the NSW Legislative Council on the CTA
ticket.
Rev Nile describes that unforgettable day in 1981 in his autobiography:
“Although
our votes and preferences to this day had a small impact on the major parties,
none of our candidates had ever attracted enough votes to be elected.
Our limited
funds and small number of workers compared with the big political machines put
us at too great a disadvantage, to say nothing of the media’s censorship and
misrepresentations of our statements and positions. All this made it difficult to expand our
support base.
Election
day,
We arrived
at our home in Ryde feeling very hot and tired after manning the key
Then at
about
I almost
dropped the phone in shock. ‘There must
be some mistake’, I said. Malcolm
assured me there was not.
I jumped in
the car and drove to the city. At the
Electoral Office, the first person I saw was a man who had little love for
either me or the Festival of Light, Premier Neville Wran – with a scowl on his
face!
Other
people, MPs, candidates, the media, all started to congratulate me. Yes, I had been elected – the final figure
was 9.2 per cent of the Upper House vote, over 225,000 primary votes. It was almost enough for two seats in
Parliament and our second Call to
Rev Nile was elected for a term of nine years.
He received a disgraceful welcome.
The ALP Government would not give him his legal entitlements as an
elected Member – no office, not even a seat in the chamber! He had to get the Parliament House plans from
his friend Jim Cameron, who was Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1973
to 1976. Rev
Finally the carpenters built a red-leathered, two-person ‘bus’ style
seat for him – right in the centre of the Upper House chamber! (Its size was
prophetic because Rev Nile’s wife joined him as a Member in 1988.)
Call to
CTA’s fundamental policy was that it recognised the mandate of the elected
government to govern. CTA’s role was to
help the government to govern better by amending and improving its bills to
produce godly legislation, always trying
to be constructive, not obstructive.
It was the Opposition’s role to make life difficult for the government,
not CTA’s. However, against ungodly
bills they would fight tooth and nail!
When Bob Carr became Premier in 1995, he gave Fred and Elaine Nile a
friendly response, inviting them to his office for morning tea and confidential
discussions. He often thanked them for their
essential votes in support of important ALP bills. Michael Egan, ALP leader in the Upper House,
has also given them confidential briefings on future ALP plans.
Jim Cameron’s 1984 Election as CTA Member
In preparation for the Call to
The CTA NSW Council met in the
Rev Nile called for nominations.
Some members said a woman should be number two and Marie Bignold was
nominated. Marie had been very
supportive of Rev Nile, especially in the Festival of Light, and they had
worked well together. Her legal advice
as a solicitor had been helpful on moral issues. So Marie was selected as number two on the
ticket. The other team members were
Graham McLennan, Kevin Hume and Elaine Nile at number five, where she had no
chance of winning.
Elaine received 8615 votes in that election compared with Marie’s
923. It was a remarkable result for
someone at number five on the ticket, and on the strength of it Johnno Johnson,
the ALP numbers man, later remarked that if Elaine was first on the ticket at the
next election, she would probably be elected.
Jim Cameron worked very hard in that election, campaigning with Rev Nile
throughout the
Jim’s triumph was short-lived. Not
long after being elected he suffered a massive heart attack at a Sutherland CTA
Dinner. His brush with death took its
toll. By late 1984 he was back in
Parliament but as they sat together in the Upper House Rev Nile could hear the
gurgling heart noises. Eventually Jim
Cameron said, ‘I’m dying, Fred; I’ll have to resign’. Rev Nile did not want him to go, but accepted
his decision.
Marie Bignold’s 1985 Succession of Jim
The big question was: who would succeed him? The rules (which have since been amended)
gave the first option to the next person on the ticket. If they said no then the option went to the
next person and so on. If no one on the
ticket wanted the seat, then the party selected the successor.
Marie Bignold was very keen to take up the seat and quickly applied for
it. Marie was sworn in on
Elaine
Soon there was to be another election on
Niles in miracle rise to power read the
newspaper headlines when against all the odds Elaine was elected to the Upper
House with nearly 200,000 votes (including preferences). It was a wonderful present for Elaine’s
fiftieth birthday on
In that election the ALP was defeated, the Coalition won government,
with Nick Greiner as Premier. But the
Coalition did not have control of the Upper House. It was Call to
In practice, the balance of power consisted of three votes split into
two votes and one vote. The ALP took
full advantage of this situation and did all it could to use Marie, without her
full knowledge, to block and frustrate government legislation. With her vote the ALP had the members to
control the Upper House, something which upset Jim Cameron no end.
Then another unexpected factor entered the situation. The famous heart surgeon Dr Victor Chang
offered Jim a heart transplant from a healthy young man. Jim accepted (an ironic development as he was
the only MP to vote against the transplant legislation) and had the
operation. Soon he was completely
recovered and as fit as a young man. He
applied to Rev Nile to get his old seat back.
The CTA Council fully supported his application and asked Marie to step
down.
The request was totally rebuffed.
At that point a complete break occurred in the relationship between Rev
Nile and Marie. No matter what they said,
it was misunderstood, and the ALP and the media poured petrol on the fire every
day to keep it going. For example, when
Marie accused Jim of only wanting the salary, he said she could keep it. She then accused him of trying to bribe
her! The media kept deliberately
misrepresenting their comments, keeping the controversy going from day to day
with news reports and colourful cartoons.
The next stage in the drama occurred when Rev Nile felt the ALP was out
to get the government leader in the Upper House and Minister for Police and
Emergency Services, Ted Pickering, over his handling of his police
portfolio. With Marie’s support the ALP
managed to form a select committee to examine a key bill which they opposed,
the Police Regulation (Allegations of Misconduct) Amendment Bill.
In the 27 September 1988 issue of Rev Nile’s private and confidential
regular monthly letter to CTA party coordinators, which was not for public
consumption, he used the common political term ‘witch hunt’ to describe what
was happening:
“This Select
Committee, which only has one
Liberal MP on it, is now conducting a witch hunt … to discredit the Leader of
the Government in the Upper House, Hon. Ted Pickering, who is also Minister for
Police, and finally try to force him to resign, so that the Greiner Government
will be seriously damaged, and so help the ALP to win the next Election.”
Rev Nile believes used the term ‘witch hunt’ innocently, but it
unleashed a hornets’ nest. On 10 October
Marie wrote to Rev Nile, deeply offended by the implications of the term and
demanded a withdrawal and an apology. On
12 October he wrote a personal letter of apology to her and the following day he
requested leave to make a personal explanation, apology and withdrawal in the
Legislative Council.
Rev Nile had hoped the matter would rest there, but the ALP saw a golden
opportunity to use their numbers to expel him from Parliament. They gleefully supported a motion moved by
Marie on behalf of the select committee to refer his words to the new,
all-powerful Standing Committee upon Parliamentary Privilege to investigate and
make recommendations to the Upper House concerning Rev Nile’s future. This committee had the power to recommend to
the House his penalty, which could include being expelled from Parliament. Interestingly, the committee had been
established by an ALP motion mere days before – the motion to set it up was
moved on
That whole period was a very unhappy one for Rev Nile and he even
considered resigning from Parliament.
The situation was finally resolved in an unexpected way. The Coalition Government introduced a bill
(which CTA supported) to hold a referendum on the composition of the Upper
House. The bill reduced the number of
Members from forty-five to forty-two and the length of a Member’s term from
twelve years to eight. This meant three
seats would be abolished, one ALP, one National Party and Marie’s. Even though Marie challenged the bill in
court, the referendum went ahead and was passed by the majority of NSW voters
at the election on
At that election the newly formed political party, The Marie Bignold
Party, led by her daughter, also failed to win a seat. It did, however, damage Rev Nile’s re-election
chances. This very public dispute had
confused and disillusioned both CTA workers and voters. It was a miracle when Rev Nile was re-elected
in spite of all the attempts of the media and the ALP to discredit him.
So Marie was out of Parliament.
But this was not really the resolution the
Later Marie invited the
Some time later, Marie raised her financial position. She pointed out that because she lost her seat
in extraordinary circumstances, she had been unable to serve out her full term
and therefore had been denied the right to acquire the seven years of
parliamentary service needed to qualify for the normal parliamentary pension. Rev Nile agreed with her that there was an
issue of justice here. He also assumed
the court cases she had conducted against the Referendum Bill must have given
her very large legal bills, to say nothing of the cost of her failed 1991
election campaign. So with Marie’s help Rev
Nile drafted a special Superannuation Pension Bill for her. The ALP agreed to support the bill, but the
government said it would oppose it.
However, through Rev Nile’s lobbying it eventually went through both
houses of Parliament unanimously in about five minutes and was passed into law,
clearing the way for Marie to receive the full parliamentary pension, for which
she was very grateful.
In spite of a vicious campaign to have Rev
The battle
between Ian Cohen (Greens) and Rev Nile for the last seat in 1991 was a
spiritual battle; the media said that Fred represented the Creator God who made
the heavens and the earth while Ian represented the pagan Earth Mother goddess! With the even numbers emerging from that
election (Coalition 20 seats, ALP and Democrats 20 seats), Elaine and I now
held the balance of power in the Parliament in our own right. We preferred to call it ‘the balance of
prayer and responsibility’. We held this
balance until the next election in 1995.
Elaine
If the 1991 election was a close call for me, the 1995 poll was tough
for Elaine. The Sydney Daily Telegraph reported that one senior Liberal politician
had even issued an order that any Liberal Party members helping the
Coalition candidate Lloyd Coleman was competing with Elaine for the
final Legislative Council seat. His vote
started to decrease in relation to
Elaine’s. Elaine’s vote gradually drew
ahead and she won the seat. The reason
was that the formal legal vote was ‘1 to 15’, but the Coalition only had
thirteen Upper House candidates! That
was a fatal mistake because ballot papers numbered only 1 to 13 were declared
informal when preferences were finally allocated.
In 1997, following two years of prayer, discussion, consultation and
professional surveys, the party discovered that young people did not understand
what ‘Call to Australia’ meant and told them, ‘If your party is based on Christian
principles, your name should say so.’ So
CTA adopted a dynamic new name,
It was under the CDP name that Rev Nile entered the race for the NSW
elections on
That election campaign was tough for CDP. The main disadvantage was that very few of
these small parties gave CDP their preferences, forcing the party to rely on
primary votes and just a few preferences.
In the end, Rev Nile secured the fifth highest primary vote out of the
eighty parties in spite of being placed on the bottom of the huge ballot paper.
Some people who wanted to vote for CDP/ Fred Nile complained they could
not even find his name, and some loyal supporters even voted for other parties
with nice sounding titles!
A new pro-family party, the Australian Family Alliance, would not give CDP
their early preferences and finally helped to elect Peter Breen of the Reform
the Legal System Party, whose mentor is John Marsden.
Yet despite the many factors against him, for the third time in Rev
Nile’s political career he saw a miracle and was elected.
The new Christian Democratic Party has received a positive response in
terms of increased membership and finance having entered the new millennium
with a fresh determination to fight for God’s vision of a stable, healthy
society.
At
John
Bradford had been endorsed as her replacement by the NSW CDP Management
Committee on 16th June and by the NSW CDP Council on
John
Bradford grew up in
On 24 August 2000,
following media controversy over his residency in NSW, John Bradford announced
that the NSW Electoral Commissioner, John Wasson, had decided that Mr Bradford "meets
all of the requirements of the legislation as having lived at the Narrabeen
address for one month prior to lodging his claim for enrolment” and that the
Electoral Commissioner did “not propose taking any further action”.
In
the meantime, as a result of the large media controversy over his place of
residence,
On
Upon hearing Elaine’s news, the
On 9 September 2000 the NSW State Council of the
The Annual NSW CDP Council Meeting on
The
Selection of 2003 NSW Election Campaign Team
Elaine Nile had agreed that she would continue her term in Parliament but
she would not seek re-election in the March 2003 State Elections. In November 2001 the Management Committee of CDP’s
began the search for a high-profile Christian who would head the ticket for the
Legislative Council elections in 2003.
A number of names were put forward, all of which sounded a little far
fetched, but Rev Nile always believed that no-one could ever know what God had
planted in the hearts of these people and maybe one of them might be ready for
their life to move in a new direction.
One of those names was the Rev Dr
Dr
Moyes took time to discuss the matter with family, the Officers of Wesley
Mission and the President of the
While still considering the proposal, Dr Moyes accepted an invitation to
be the key-note speaker at the launching dinner held at the Parramatta Leagues
Club on
A much larger campaign launching rally was held in the Blacktown Civic
Centre on
The excitement and joy in that hall in
Elaine
In the meantime, Hon Elaine Nile’s health had not greatly improved. For the second time in as many years Elaine
announced her early retirement and made her valedictory (retirement) speech on
A
media release issued by CDP on 26 August 2002 announced the retirement of Elaine
Nile and the joint sitting of Members of both Houses of the New South Wales
Parliament at which
“Dr Moyes was confirmed earlier this year as Superintendent
of Wesley Mission until the end of 2005, when he has requested that he be
allowed to retire after 27 years as the head of the largest Christian ministry
in the nation. This has also been confirmed by the Sydney Presbytery of the
The President of the UCA, Prof James Haire has approved Dr
Moyes standing for the Legislative Council while Superintendent of Wesley
Mission and has asked if he may preach at a special service of Dedication for
Dr Moyes as he serves in the Legislative Council.”
On
The Party Leader, Rev Fred Nile, had invited
New Appointment: State Director
Following
extensive consultation with the CDP Management and State Coordinators’ Council,
In
this inaugural position of State Director, Phil said that his goal for CDP is
“to become the third major party in the NSW Upper House behind the Liberal and
Labor parties, and to increase our NSW Parliamentary team with talented and
competent Bible-believing Christian leaders.”
He spoke on four aspects to his vision for CDP:
1.
CDP - properly promoted.
Deliberate strategies will be devised, which the whole party
embraces – that will “broaden our support”.
“We must be looking to attract younger voters, and bringing a younger
image to our party. That means we will be heading
into new directions – our methods of
communicating to our members and supporters
may need to change. I believe that
our greatest challenge as we journey down this road, is to keep our faithful
and loyal supporters -- while at the same time reaching out to a wider
Christian support base which will require different communications, media and
marketing, and addressing issues about which they are concerned. We can do this in a coordinated and extended
promotion by taking our supporters, and indeed the Christian public, on a
journey – and reporting to them along that journey.”
2.
CDP - properly resourced.
As
an organisation, we have not learned to fund-raise effectively like other
parties. One of Phil’s primary goals is
to devise strategies for properly resourcing our organisation both in numbers
and finances. Extra memberships will
further resource us and provide a broader base from which to draw new workers
and candidates. His goal is for CDP to
grow by 400 in members and supporters during 2004.
3.
CDP - properly informed.
The
State Council needs to be properly informed - continually. Phil would like some qualitative and
quantitative answers to many questions.
Why do we not know what the Christian community values when voting? Why do the majority of Christians in NSW NOT
support the only Christian Party in parliament?
Why do the media not give CDP much credibility, or equal space or time
to that which they give to the other parties?
Why do 100,000’s of voters place us as second preference votes? We can find out the mind of the Christian
community by conducting research – otherwise known as focus groups, and opinion
polls. They are quite accurate and FM103.2,
which Phil is involved in, has been conducting “omnibus” opinion polls for the
last three years.
4.
CDP - properly prepared.
Phil
is committed to documenting our election processes and procedures with a view
to utilising the information for advance planning and setting up time-lines and
Gantt Charts (used in project management) to sequence and order the
procedures. Our volunteers will be
sought early through advertising and through the local Branch. We will not resort to last minute acceptance
of candidates. Our decision making
processes will be timely and well considered.
Phil
concluded: “Now every CEO will bring a new leadership style and a new zest for
the organisation. The major
recommendations and directions I bring for the party will come back to you as
the State council for endorsement. You
have asked me to ‘establish an organisation’ – that means – GET ON WITH THE
JOB!! Are you ready with your sleeves
rolled up for some exciting work ahead?”
Last updated: November 2003. Compiled by Kylie Laurence.